Elusive Scarlet
by faeriegirl12
Summary: When Lily Evans realizes the true purpose of her remote boarding school, she begins to plot her escape. On one of her test runs, she meets James Potter. When he agrees to help her escape from a life of constant pregnancies in a marriage to an aristocrat, Lily agrees to his deal without knowing that life outside the school's walls is more dangerous than she imagines. Dystopian AU.
1. Chapter 1: Dead Eyes

**Elusive Scarlet**

When Lily Evans realizes the true purpose of her remote boarding school for orphaned girls, she begins to plot her escape from a life of constantly giving birth in a loveless marriage to an aristocrat in her final year of school—a week before her graduation, to be exact. On one of her test runs, she meets wealthy lord James Potter. Will he help her escape? And if so, what waits beyond the school's walls are more dangerous than anything Lily imagines. James x Lily, Sirius x OC. Love in the midst of danger!

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><p><strong>DISCLAIMER: Toast to Queen Rowling!<strong>

**Chapter One: Dead Eyes**

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><p><em>Your mind is on track<em>

_For the games we play these days_

_With every path we take_

_The only risk is that you'll go insane_

-Flume feat. Moon Holiday, "Insane"

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><p>"<em>LILY EVANS!"<em>

The jarring shout bolted Lily out of her half-asleep pose and out of her hard-backed seat to fall gracelessly in a wild sprawl on the musty carpet. Her pencil and paper that had her "notes" (a ridiculous scrawl of doodles) followed her soon after, clattering unceremoniously to the floor. Amid the malicious titters from her snooty classmates, Lily, with a glower directed at no one in particular, dragged herself back into her chair; head whipping towards the doorway where she knew would stand the headmistress, Headmistress Bulstrode.

No teacher in the entire Young Ladies' Boarding School had an aversion to Lily quite like the headmistress did. None of the teachers liked Lily to the smallest degree, but none of them loathed her like Headmistress Bulstrode did.

"_LILY EVANS!"_ the headmistress screeched once more. Lily turned at a slug's pace in the headmistress' direction, her most carefully crafted stare of bored indifference painted upon her face.

"Yes, Madame Bulstrode?" Lily replied sweetly, her tone verging on poisonous.

"To my office. At once." The puce-faced headmistress pointed a shaking finger down the corridor, her mouth set in a thin, angry line. Lily wanted to laugh, for seeing Headmistress Bulstrode furious was like watching a cartoon come to life: the tomato shade seemed almost unreal and the hairy upper lip suggested a moustache. The headmistress was short, stout, and relatively nasty when it came to dealing with students whom she despised.

Lily sighed inwardly, although she tried to keep a wicked grin from latching itself onto her lips. This time, Headmistress Bulstrode likely had an actual reason for yanking Lily out of class: three days ago after Bulstrode had whacked Lily's knuckles with a ruler for "speaking out of turn" until they were bleeding profusely, Lily snuck into the Headmistress' private quarters and put woodland bugs she had gathered in the most remote areas of the grounds into Bulstrode's bed and underwear drawer. The punishment Lily knew would follow felt almost worth it to hear the terrified shrieks of the vile headmistress the previous night.

Shoving her way past the door with the gold-lettered plaque reading HEADMISTRESS D. BULSTRODE, Lily plopped in a very unladylike fashion into one of the hard, wooden chairs. Bulstrode's desk appeared the same as always: a festoon of paperwork and manuscripts all with her cursive signature of _Dorea V. Bulstrode _and random knickknacks scattered haphazardly over the desk's surface. Lily picked up a curious timepiece that was inlaid with gold, history lessons flying to the forefront of her mind.

In her History class, Madame Riley had pulled out a timepiece she said was named a "watch" and that before the lethal virus destroyed the majority of the population, nearly everyone wore a watch. The watch for the impromptu show-and-tell that day had also been gold, another extremely rare substance Madame Riley told the girls had been more common in the "old days."

Lily pulled the timepiece closer to her face, examining it thoroughly. It was indeed the same watch, but what was Headmistress Bulstrode doing with it? Instead of numbers along the edges like most of the watches, Madame Riley had mentioned very little of why this one had astronomical constellations lining the edges.

The door slammed open. Lily threw the timepiece back onto the headmistress' desk right before the toad-like woman sat down, an ugly, furious stare in her beetle-black eyes.

"I know what you did," hissed the headmistress. There was a slight scuffling sound from the wall and she leapt up, slapping herself all over. _Operation #30, named the Bug Blasting, is rendered successful, _Lily thought triumphantly as she fought to keep a straight face while the headmistress began to frantically slap her own bottom as if there were insects swarming over her body.

A small snort escaped Lily when the headmistress had seated herself once again. She tried to cover it up with pushing her features back into their blank mask.

Headmistress Bulstrode's eyes narrowed as she shouted, "Why, you insolent, wretched little brat—"

For the second time that day, the door smashed back open. The headmistress, who had been up in Lily's face and snarling profanities at the red-haired girl, quickly drew herself back into her seat and sat up poker-straight. "Is there something you needed, Fleet?"

Fleet glanced around the office. Lily noticed his Adam's apple bob twice before he replied shakily, "Ma'am, there's been an, ah, _interruption—_" He coughed as to indicate Lily's presence. Lily fought the urge to yell, _I'm still sitting here! _

Headmistress Bulstrode's mouth thinned again and something akin to panic appeared in the lines of her pudgy face. "What interruption? Where?" Her voice grew sharper with every word.

"The, uh, _wing. . ." _Fleet's voice was heavy with implicated meaning. _Bulstrode must've picked up on it, _Lily observed. The headmistress shot up from her seat as fast as she could and waddled out the door. Fleet followed her sheepishly. But just when Lily thought the headmistress was off to the enigmatic "wing" Fleet mentioned, her face popped back into the doorway.

"And you, Evans, don't you move a muscle," snapped Bulstrode, her face screwed up like she had been fed a dosage of the school's infamous onion broth. "You shall wait for your punishment until I arrive back."

"Duly noted," Lily muttered to a seemingly empty room. She listened closely to the muffled whispers filtering down the hall, identifying one voice as Headmistress Bulstrode's and the other as Fleet's.

_What wing? _Lily thought, her mind whirling. _There aren't any wings at this school. . . Or are there? _

In an impulsive decision, Lily darted out of her uncomfortably hellish chair, poking her head into the hallway. At the first turn, she could see the headmistress' toadish figure stomping ahead of Fleet, who awkwardly trailed in her wake.

A bolt of strong curiosity lit in Lily. _The wing. . . I can find out what the wing is if I follow Headmistress Hell. _Checking the corridor once more and finding it still empty, Lily ran soundlessly after Bulstrode and Fleet. She skidded to stop after going down the right fork like the headmistress and Fleet. Inhaling sharply, Lily held her breath when she noticed that the two people she wanted to notice her the least were a mere ten feet in front of her. She froze, praying that they wouldn't turn around.

Lily released a breath once they went down the curve of the hallway. When she followed them, she made sure to go slower instead of wildly sprinting after the headmistress and Fleet. When Lily reached the curve of the hall where Bulstrode and Fleet had been just minutes before, she pressed herself against it as the pair continued down the hall and out a pair of French doors with the school's insignia, a burst of roses crossed by a bouquet of tulips carved into the wood.

Lily cautiously pushed open the doors a crack. Through the thin sliver, she could see Bulstrode and Fleet traversing down the grounds to a small building where the windows were clumsily boarded up. She stared at it, her gaze running over the weathered wooden walls and the thick, steely chains wound around the door handles.

_How have I never known this has been here? _Lily wondered. A few schoolgirls were milling aimlessly about the grounds around the horizon, but none of them seemed to pay any attention to the mysterious wing, the headmistress fiddling with the lock, or Fleet, who had pulled out a key from his pocket.

In the midst of her musings, Lily realized something: Fleet was going to lock up the wing's doors before Lily arrived and then she would never get to see what disturbance had occurred in the wing.

Lily considered her options, her brain racing to figure out a solution before Bulstrode ordered Fleet to lock up the doors again. _I could run over there and stick something in between the doors so they're jammed. I could jam the lock itself. I could. . . _

"Lock them, Fleet." Headmistress Bulstrode's voice carried over to where Lily was peering out from behind the cover of a thick tree trunk.

_No! _Lily wanted to yell. _Don't lock them, Fleet, don't listen to her—_

But of course Fleet listened to the commanding headmistress. It was obvious that he was frightened of her and would gladly and eagerly do whatever she asked of him. Lily snorted despite the predicament. But once her small spout of amusement vanished, her panic began to rise steadily. She could do nothing but watch, eyes wide in despair, as Fleet locked the doors. The key was firmly in his pocket; Lily had no hope that she might've been able to nick it off him. The doors shut with a resounding rumble and Lily's spirit sagged.

_I _must _know what lies in that wing. I simply shan't let this be until my curiosity is at rest! But. . . how am I to get in, then? _Lily pondered relentlessly. Her eyes drifted to the boarded-up windows on the front side—if they hadn't been shackled with wood, then she could've stolen a quick peek inside them. If they hadn't been hammered in so securely, then perhaps she could've torn a bit of the wood away. But with the situation where it was, each scenario would lead Lily to discovery by Headmistress Bulstrode.

_But. . . what about windows in the back? _Lily's heart leapt with hope. What if. . . there were more windows but they hadn't ever been boarded up? _Or, _she considered, _the wood binding them might be wetter and flimsier since the wing backs to a forest, which rarely sees much sun. _

Lily quickly scampered to the backside of the building. Strangely enough, the majority of windows hadn't been boarded up. In fact, the windows were shining glass panes, free of dirt and debris. The entire backside of the wing was steady grey stone, which led it the look of a research lab Lily had seen in one of the old textbooks while snooping through Bulstrode's office when she was fifteen.

_Why did they design the front side to look so. . . dilapidated and run-down and the back sleek and sophisticated? _It made almost no sense. _Unless. . . _Lily could feel the metaphorical cogs whirling. _The headmistress has something to hide here. _This revelation only heightened her burning curiosity, and Lily ran over to the nearest window. It was the slightest bit too high for her to see into it properly—the bottom of the frame was centimeters taller than the top of her head.

Glancing around frantically, Lily found two bricks lying around the side of the wing. With a wince as her arms protested, she heaved them up and deposited them underneath the windowsill and then stood on them quickly, not bothering to test it they would hold their position underneath her weight or not.

Lily stared at the scene playing out through the window. . . and gasped in horror.

_It's a damn hospital. _

_The mysterious wing is a sodding hospital. _

Beds lined the north and south sides of the walls. Moving trays laden with silver, sharp instruments were at every bedside. Most of the beds were filled except for two or three. At first, Lily tried to convince herself that the girls in the beds had gotten ill and had to be quarantined. But her transparent slip of ignorance fell away as she narrowed in on the obvious details.

Every girl had an abnormally swollen stomach. Some of them had tubes and needles that Lily knew were called IVs hooked up to their inner wrists or crooks of their elbows. Each IV traced back to a bag full of clear liquid. Some of the girls looked like they were sleeping, but Lily knew better. The clear liquid wasn't water—Lily could only guess it was a type of painkiller, which she thought was odd. No one used painkillers anymore; Headmistress Bulstrode herself had proclaimed that they were an outdated medicinal practice of the past.

Lily, gaping and appalled, examined the girls more closely. None of them looked very old at all; they could have easily been sixteen to eighteen years of age. A sheen of sweat covered many of their foreheads as they tossed and turned restlessly. Lily could hear the faint sound of whimpering from inside the wing. A piercing scream assaulted Lily's ears as a brunette girl whipped her head to and fro in her bed, her legs trembling as her stomach seemed to rise higher. The woman standing nearest her snarled something incomprehensible and jabbed a needle into the girl's arm. The stout woman looked horribly familiar from the back, and it hit Lily like Bulstrode's rulers across her knuckles: the woman _was _the headmistress.

Lily could see it clearly now: Headmistress Bulstrode striding from bed to bed and wrinkling her pug nose in distaste at the blood-soaked or vomited-upon linens the girls writhed in. Lily could see her growing swiftly furious at whomever was closest to her—Fleet and a terrified nurse.

Words trickled through the window like mud. "_Why. . . given birth yet?!" _Lily heard the headmistress shout in outrage.

The nurse quivered in her shoes and whispered something inaudible. Fleet cringed. Bulstrode's face grew redder and redder until it was almost an eggplant shade. Lily, still perched underneath the windowsill, crossed her fingers and prayed that the headmistress would perish through an ugly end like choking.

"_If I injected. . . . drugs, ma'am. . . die," _whispered the nurse. Lily pressed closer to the window in vain, fighting a battle to hear every word and not be seen clinging awkwardly to the window by the puce-colored headmistress, Fleet, and the nurse.

The next shout felt like it shattered both the window and Lily's eardrums. "_WELL DO IT THEN!" _ Lily nearly fell ungracefully off her brick tower, gasping as her ears rang. Inside the wing, both Fleet and the nurse were wincing harder than ever. At a venomous hiss from the headmistress, both were scrambling to clumsily inject the bedridden girl with more of the drug.

_Pregnant, _Lily realized, gasping slightly in horror. _They're all pregnant. But why? _It didn't take much thought to trace the pregnancies back to Headmistress Bulstrode; anyone with half a brain could deduce from her violent reaction that the pregnancies were obviously of great importance to her. _Except why would she need anyone to be pregnant? _Lily wondered, her eyes huge as the headmistress strode from bed to bed, examining some girls' stomachs or their IVs and occasionally snapping at the nurse.

_Think, Lily, think! What would cause the need for so many girls to be pregnant? _Lily sifted through the corners of her mind. _Murder of someone? Accidents? Mass murder? A massacre? _Nothing too horrible and devastating came to the forefront of her brain, so Lily settled for trying to figure out who the girls were. Her gaze fell upon the rows of girls, some blonde, some brunette, some black-haired, but all looked vaguely familiar. Like a magnet, the brunette girl who had been whipping her head to and fro drew Lily's gaze once again. _There's something about her. . . _

And then, in a dazed, sleepy stupor, the girl's eyes opened and Lily inhaled sharply. They were a once-brilliant golden color, and suddenly Lily knew exactly who the girl was.

_"__I just wanted to say that I've had a wonderful time at the Young Ladies' Boarding School," announced the valedictorian, Marlene McKinnon. Lily looked up at her in awe; Marlene symbolized exactly what Lily herself wanted to be: beautiful, smart, poised, and the valedictorian. "My experience here has been like no other. This is the youngest we'll ever be. This is the most paramount point in my life, and soon, yours. I wish you the best of luck with your futures, and hope to see you soon in the King's Seat selling art or working in laboratories. Good luck." _

Lily slipped back out of the memory. Shock and numbness washed over her. Marlene McKinnon, the brightest and best scientist in the whole school, was in the hospital birthing a litter of children for the rest of her life. Realization swept swiftly over Lily as she stared at each of the girls, and suddenly they all weren't pregnant girls she was examining, but they were her elder friends, they were Marlene and Anna and Madison and Alicia and Mia and Jane and Lily found herself breathing in shallow, sharp breaths and panic and fear roared over her. She was going to become one of those girls, with the swollen stomachs and bloodstained bedclothes and dead eyes and drugged bodies. She was going to be the girl that was chained to pregnancy and birth in a vicious cycle until she died. Her future lay not in false lie of science in the King's Seat but a numb life in the hospital until she was disposed of or died from blood loss.

_I have to get out of here. _Escape pulsed through her system. Lily clambered loudly off her pile of bricks and ran wildly away from the hospital, anything to get away from the headmistress, the blank eyes of Marlene McKinnon, and the empty, coldly unforgiving truth that waited for her in a hospital bed and birthing drugs.

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><p><strong>ANOTHER NEW FIC TIME! <strong>

**(If anyone is wondering why I said 'another', I just uploaded a TMI fic called ****_I'm Falling to Pieces_****.) **

**Thoughts on ****_Elusive Scarlet? _****Also, in case anyone is wondering, James makes his first appearance in the following chapter :) **

**_ANYONE WHO REVIEWS GETS A SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTER TWO! _****_I REPEAT: ANYONE WHO REVIEWS GETS A SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTER TWO! _**

**As far as the updates for ****_Dark Clarity, City of the Fallen, Clockwork Academy, Matching Shadows, _****and any others I've forgotten, tell me the update you guys want to see the soonest and I'll work the hardest on that one.**

**Also, I have new story ideas up on my bio! Pretty please check them out and let me know which ones y'all are most interested in? **


	2. Chapter 2: Partners In Crime

**DISCLAIMER:** **Can I own HP? For a day? **

**Chapter Two: Partners In Crime**

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><p><em>You have to die a few times before you can really live.<em>

—Bukowski

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><p>It had been a day since Lily had seen Marlene and all the other girls being bred like primal animals in the mysterious, sinister wing that Headmistress Bulstrode spent a large quantity of her time at. In the 24 hours since the turning point in Lily's life occurred, she had stealthily crept behind the headmistress and Fleet, feelings of mingled horror and anger trailing in her wake. The headmistress and Fleet, meanwhile, visited the hospital a minimum of twice per day to screech violently at the nurses on duty and pump more birthing drugs into the girls who tossed and turned restlessly in their beds. And then, with every passing hour until graduation, Lily, slowly but surely, began to plan her escape.<p>

She started with filching nearly ancient blueprints of the dratted Young Ladies' Boarding School from Headmistress Bulstrode's office by purposefully antagonizing the toad-like woman with four passive-aggressive comments. Of course, Lily's punishment had been a knuckle-rapping that left her hands bleeding, but getting the floor plans was well worth it in her eyes.

The next thing Lily proceeded to do was steal the teachers' patrol schedule for after hours long enough for her to copy it down and before the headmistress realized it was missing. As clearly written on the patrol schedule, there was a teacher sanctioned outside of Lily's cramped chambers every night from 7:00 in the evening to 12:30 in the dark hours of the morning. _But _Lily also happened to know that it was Teacher Eunice, an elderly woman who never paid much attention to anything. The rest of the teachers switched shifts every hour and a half and always worked from the first floor to the fourth, which was where Lily's dilapidated prison laid. _So, _Lily deduced as she carefully placed the patrol papers back where they came from, _if I planned it just right when they were on the first floor, then I could escape. Possibly. But what to do about Teacher Eunice? _Lily's mind strived for a solution as she darted back to the fourth floor. _What if. . . _In her mind's eye, she saw the elaborate wine cabinet that she discovered was filled with scotch and rum bottles when she was thirteen. _What if I took one bottle of scotch and spiked Teacher Eunice's drink with it? She's an old lady, I doubt they can hold alcohol as well as a twenty-year-old younger version of themselves. _

The following day, Lily called Narcissa Black, the snobbiest girl in the entire school, a "proud bitch who can't get her ugly head out of her prissy arse" in front of everyone and anyone who attended the daily breakfast at 7:25 sharp. Lily was promptly dragged to the headmistress' office for the second day in a row and given a harsher knuckle-rapping that resulted in blood splattered all over Headmistress Bulstrode's desk. But when the vile woman marched furiously out of her office, Lily slipped two bottles of Scotch into her bookbag and covered them with old assignments from years past.

_At least I know that all of it, every pain I felt from Bulstrode or the other girls here all led up to these next few days, _Lily thought reassuringly to herself as she waited stoically on her creaky cot, her nerves haywire. Tonight was the first test run she was performing to prove that her clever plans would survive when being thrust into action.

At precisely 8:32, Lily had put a strong dosage of Scotch into Teacher Eunice's evening tea and listened patiently until she heard the inevitable snuffling snoring noises as Eunice slumped against the wall. When the teachers reversed their shifts back to the first floor, Lily bolted to the window, but when she gazed down at the dewy, moonlit grounds and the heavy wall with the exotic promise of freedom that withered behind it, dread boiled in her stomach.

_Of all the things, dammit! _she swore to herself. _Of all the bloody things to forget, I manage to forget how to find a way down this sodding tower. . . _

Tears of frustration and disappointment burned sudden and swift in her green eyes. Lily furiously wiped them away before they could drip cowardly down her face and put her brain to work. _There's literally nothing I can do besides jump, and that would probably frame me as suicidal. I can't dash out the front entrance because the teachers are still down at the first floor. _

A loud bursting, cracking sound nearly made her fall, startled, out the window and Lily cautiously poked her head as far outside as she could. To her astonishment and absolute wonder, thick vines were sprouting wildly out of the brick, curving their way down the building in such a way that someone could climb down them without risking imminent death. With a quick glance at the ticking clock on the northern wall (it was 8:49 so the teachers were almost at the second floor), Lily inhaled deeply, swung herself up onto the window's ledge, and began scaling the wall towards the ground, her breath coming fast and sharp with adrenaline.

When Lily was fifteen feet above the ground, she halted, clenching the vine in her hand as she swung herself outwards to face the landscape before her. Smoky clouds were rising in congealance towards the moon and if Lily squinted to the point of blindness, the ugliness of the boarding school and what it hid in its heart was replaced by the quiet, velvety beauty of the night. If she arched her neck far upwards enough, she could see the smallest sliver of horizon over the menacing brick and stone walls; a slender strip of blackened grey with the darkened tip of a tree.

_The world that lies behind this—this prison is beauty beyond anything imaginable, _Lily thought, hope surging through her. _If I can do it, if I can pull this off, I'll be free. Finally free and—_

A small, melodic strain of music from below her made almost caused her to lose her grip. With a tiny gasp, Lily righted herself on the vine, wiping sweat from her brow as her gaze darted to the figure of a man striding in her direction.

_Oh no, oh no. _Bursts of panic assaulted her mind. Her hands trembled dangerously. _He'll find me and tell the headmistress, and then, oh God, Bulstrode will—_

Before she knew what was happening, her feet were slipping, skidding over the vine as it seemed to vanish before her eyes and she was falling with a high-pitched scream to the grass.

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><p>James Potter was visiting the Young Ladies' Boarding School on pure business: proof to the King in the King's Seat that he was fit to be a candidate for the position as the King's Advisor.<p>

At least, that's what he told himself.

_In reality, _considered James as he found himself whistling a forgotten folk tune, _Father thought it would be best even though I want nothing to do with the stupid king. If I could, I would run away, but I only agreed so I could poke fun at that horridly toady headmistress, Bulstrode-something-or-other. _He grinned in spite of the misery that toiled through his veins. _If only Sirius could meet her. . . ha. _

According to James' father, Headmistress Bulstrode should be awaiting his arrival at precisely 9:01 at night. The guards at the gate in the wall had let him in already; a good sign that everything was following the plan accordingly.

James cut around what was described as the North Tower on the map of the large school when a terrified scream sliced the night sky like a double-bladed sword. His head whipped towards the direction of the scream and he saw the quick slash of a girl with hair so red it seemed to glow even in the dark falling to the ground and hitting it with a dull thud.

"Merlin," James muttered to himself as he arrived at the girl's side. In the dim light, her eyes suddenly shot open with the panicked look of an animal's that was being hunted as she tried to scramble away from him.

"Stay—stay away from me, I'm warning you!" The words were hissed quietly, her brilliant green eyes beaming dagger-like stares at him. From the soft voice to the hurried glances towards the North Tower's window, something wasn't right. James' eyes narrowed. "You can't tell anyone, understand?"

_Why is she so frightened, like I'm about to attack her? _"I won't tell a soul," James promised quickly. "But only if you tell me why you fell from that tower."

"I can't do that!" she exclaimed defiantly in cramped whispers. "You'll tell _her _and then I'm good as dead!"

"Who are you talking about?" he frowned, taking in the way her hands curled into fists, the sharp red of her hair as it stirred in the breeze, the strangely beautiful way her eyes glared in his direction.

The girl's gaze panned the expanse of campus behind him and then back up at the window of the North Tower. "The headmistress. Who else?"

"Why?" James was struck with an abrupt curiosity to help this girl. "Headmistress Bulstrode, you mean?"

"The very same. I can't tell you anything about her, though."

"Can you tell me why you fell from this tower?"

"Can't tell you that either."

"Why?" James caught her green gaze, watching the hesitation and the secrets roll about in them. _There's just something about her, something that makes me want to talk to her all the more. . . _

"I don't even know who you are," she sighed at last, taking a step back. "You could be anyone. You could be lying to me. You could be running to turn me into Bulstrode after this. Don't you see?"

"I'm James Potter, heir to Harold Potter. I have a best friend called Sirius. I like reading stories about different worlds because I dislike reality. I visit strange boarding schools by the moon's hour so I can snicker at their headmistresses. I secretly loathe what my father tells me to do. And I'm extremely interested in your story. What's your name?"

She stared at him, eyes wide. "Lily. Lily Evans."

He grinned at her. _A lovely name for a clearly beautiful girl. _"Now, will you please tell me something, Lily, anything?"

Lily began tentatively, "I. . . I'm an orphan. I truly hate this school and all that it entails. I'm the headmistress' least favorite student. I told Narcissa Black she was a proud bitch because it was part of my plan. And someday, I'm going to get out of here. Not to the King's Seat for work, because that future will never exist for me. I'm going to escape to out there." She pointed to the wall. "_That _will become my reality."

"So that's why you fell out of the tower," James deduced. "Lily, what do you mean? Why can't you go find work in the King's Seat?"

She drew in a great shuddering breath. "A few days ago, I followed the headmistress and one of her cowardly assistants to a place they spoke of as the 'wing.' I had never heard of it, so, naturally I was curious. I now know that this isn't a boarding school for girls—it's a manipulative operation that turns girls into birthing machines. If I stay here, my life will turn into a cycle of constantly giving birth to a litter until they dispose of me."

Bleak horror dawned upon James. "How—how does no one else realize this?"

"They don't dare question the headmistress," Lily told him, her eyes glassy. "Because if you cross her, you get punished by pain. Simple. Barbaric. Utterly effective."

"I—" James didn't know what to say to the vulnerable girl standing in front of him. "How are you going to escape?"

"I stole the patrol schedule and the school's blueprints," Lily said in one breath, "and two bottles of scotch to send Teacher Eunice, who sits outside my door, into a liquor-induced sleep. Then I scale the tower and the wall. That's all."

_She's brilliant, _he thought in startled awe."But. . ." An idea began to formulate in James' mind. "What will you do when you get past the guards at the wall? What will you do beyond the wall?"

"What are you propositioning?"

"What if I were to help you?"

"I don't need your help." The reply snapped like a whip. James flinched.

"I mean, what if I was to come with you?"

"Why on earth would you ever want to come with me?"

"Because I am exactly like you, Lily. We are the same because we both want out of this life."

Lily was silent for a long time. James was about to propose another idea or relent and stick to the plan, which was to go visit the headmistress. _But after hearing Lily's story, I don't want anything to do with that horrible, corrupt woman. _"All right, James. You can be my partner in crime."

"Really?" he asked in joyful surprise. "You mean it?"

Lily looked taken aback, and then laughed, the clear tone sending a tingle up James' spine. "Of course! I suppose you _are _right, after all, and who am I to deny someone like me? _You_ want a new reality, James. _I_ want to give you that if you'll do the same in return."

"I'd agree to just about anything you say, Lily."

She smiled at him and it lit up her entire face. "Tonight was a test-run—I just wanted to make sure everything worked in harmony, you see. But the original date I had planned to go beyond the walls is three days from now: the night of graduation."

"Excellent."

"I have to go now, James. The teachers should be at the end of the second floor by now, and if they find my room devoid of me, they'll probably stick me in the wing a few days early."

"When will I see you again?" James called before he turned away.

She grinned. "Tomorrow night, same time, same place."

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><p><strong>Things are starting to fall in motion now. . . What do you think of James' characterization? I hope I did an okay job!<strong>

**Brilliant thank-you to all my readers, reviewers, followers, and favoriters! I cannot put into words how much I appreciate y'all :) **

**I'm also thinking of changing Elusive Scarlet's title, so heads up. Hopefully that won't result in future confusion. **

**What do you guys want to see updated next? Give me a title and I'll try to update that next! Besides popular vote, the next story I'm trying to write more on is probably City of the Fallen, for all the TMI fans out there.**

**_PurplePythonShoes: _****Glad I've got you interested! Thanks for reviewing :)**

**_cocky marauder princess:_****Thank you! What do you think of Chp.2? And thanks for the review!**


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